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Saturday, Day 2:
I spent the night driving around dead bodies in the streets and saving my town and my daughter from tiny glowing balls that were trying to invade our bodies. So I woke up exhausted and shaken from my nightmare. But David Tennant was speaking at 10:30, so I got my butt out of bed. I hauled myself to the Metro and arrived at 8am. However, I just missed a train by 3 minutes and had to wait 17 minutes for the next one. Even worse, there was an issue with the trains when I tried to transfer and it was 40 minutes until the next Yellow train I needed arrived. So I didn’t get to the convention center until 9:35, which was when the doors were supposed to open for seating. As I arrived in the registration hall, I heard one of the best quotes of the con from one of the volunteers “David Tennant is by the garage door!” It was only to indicate that’s where the end of the line to see him currently was.

I hurried over to the pretty sizable line that was weaving from one side of the room to the other. I heard my name called and turned to see a friend from grad school I hadn’t seen in over 10 years! It’s great running into people at cons, but I was still in my one track mind of “must get to end of line!” During the next hour, nearly the entire room filled up with the line and, as far as I saw, every one of the 5,000 seats ended up being filled. The line volunteers were amazing, though, packing us all in there and keeping order. They would say things like “Welcome to the line! This is all part of the experience!” and “You’re doing great! You’re almost there!” VIPS got in first. Not including them, I think I was about a third of the way from the front. There was a WHOLE LOT of line behind me; I cannot imagine much of that portion got in.

Friday, Day 1:
I woke up about an hour later than usual and had a leisurely but efficient breakfast before heading off to the Metro. I began reading Pack Animals (Torchwood #7) by Peter Anghelides on the long ride to the Library of Congress. While walking from the metro station to the LOC building, I passed two women around my age taking photos of a group of people walking across the street, escorted by the police. I have been watching news nonstop for the past two weeks, but I didn’t recognize anyone in the group (and I’ve been watching a lot of news). Looked like it might have been a representative and her congressional aides, but I’ve no clue. Anyway, I got to the Thomas Jefferson Library of Congress Building a little before 11.

The Library of Congress put together a really neat pop-up exhibit only available for a few days, called Library of Awesome. It was filled with parts of the LOC collection, grouped by themes. It was a great reminder that the LOC preserves these parts of culture that are important to fans. The people behind me as we went through the different exhibit rooms were in the most AMAZING Wonder Woman and Black Panther outfits ever. There was also a brave young man in an amazing Fantastic Four outfit. There were so many great comics on display, I couldn’t begin to list them all. But I did take photos of some of my favorites. In one room they had clips from TV shows playing and I walked in just as Buffy was sacrificing herself (feels!), following by a clip of Doctor Who with the Tenth Doctor. It was a surreal to be standing in the largest library in the entire world, watching Buffy and Doctor Who and looking at first appearances of comic book characters in print! There was also a neat letter from Gene Roddenbery to Carl Sagan.

My Christmas tree is a mix of ornaments from my childhood and ones from later on in my life. Many of them are related to my favorite fandoms, naturally. I thought I would showcase one every other day in December in a 12 Days of Fandom Ornaments series.

Day 5: These Are the Droids I’m Looking For

Part of a pack of Star Wars ornaments, here are a couple good-looking droids.

I have more than enough to do two lists… possibly even three Here are some of the fandom-related LEGO creations that caught my eye this year at my local LEGO convention, Brickfair VA. Clickity-click the photos for larger versions.

This might be old news by the time it finally hits my blog (I schedule posts way ahead of time!), but apparently Darth Vader has adopted a stretch of highway to clean up near my old stomping grounds. Henry Wakley, a school bus driver, adopted the highway in Blacksburg in Darth Vader’s name. Not only does the sign give one a chuckle, but he actually goes out to clean the area wearing a Darth Vader mask. How much fun would that be to see as you’re driving by?

When I was at Virginia Tech, my adopted highway with the honors community service group wasn’t too far from this particular road. So it’s great to see the program still at work and that someone is putting fandom to good use!

The year is half over, so I thought it time to evaluate my fanfiction writing progress. I didn’t participate in the annual Harry Potter challenge in May that I’ve done for ten years now, which is sad. But I’m running my own fest in the spring now and it’s been quite pleasant not to have to worry about both at the same time.

Sometimes I will pin things on my Ideas & Inspirations Pinterest board with every intention of trying my hand at that project or something similar to it at least. But every so often I come across a craft that is so amazing I could never hope to duplicate it.

People who know me know I like to sort people I meet into Hogwarts Houses. I can’t do it with all people, but some people give off pretty strong indicators. I do the same thing with fictional characters.

I thought it would be fun to come up with 10 characters I sort into particular houses. And, as I’m a Hufflepuff, I thought I’d start with my favorite house. I thus give you ten characters I usually sort into Hufflepuff: